Translations with a higher-level of nuance that needs to be effectively conveyed, require a team-translation approach.
This involves two people working in tandem for optimal translation efficiency and efficacy:
- Martu linguist who is a native speaker with high bilingual fluency;
- Bilingual English mother-tongue linguist with a high level of English fluency and proficiency.
This service is often an integral part of media-production and subtitling, where nuance is being actively sought and captured in translation.
For translating scripts that deal with familiar Martu contexts and topics, this process tends to be quite quick.
However, for concepts that come from mainstream contexts and for which Martu Wangka translations don’t yet exist, devising accurate translations that will be understood and digested is a difficult and time-intensive process.
Thus it is seriously worth taking the time to consult first and really critique the holistic cross-cultural planning and engagement process so as to:
- be certain the overall cross-cultural engagement approach is likely to be effective and that the project is important to the community;
- make sure that we properly break down and accurately target the key messages and scripts that need to be digested by mother-tongue Martu Wangka speakers.
Taking the time to properly plan and consult, will mean we can take a step back to examine the cross-cultural understandings, significance, and engagement approaches that are likely to arise and be most relevant and fruitful, and then devise and test appropriate analogies and symbols (where necessary) for scripting.
For most projects, Dukepa thus recommends team-translation only be used strategically as one part of an overall cross-cultural engagement and communications strategy.
